The Lido: Glory days of the outdoor swimming pool

The 1930's were the golden age of the lido

'Lidos' aren't those inflatable mattresses you lie on in the pool (those are lilos...). Lidos are the pools themselves. Large communal outdoor swimming pools are having something of a renaissance at the moment, but you have to go back to the mid to late 1930's for their heyday. A large and well-built lido was guaranteed to be an attraction, so hundreds were built by councils across the country.